In Loving Memory of a lovely Angel

9:05am, I peeked over to my boyfriend's phone.


"DY:Hey guys, I'm not going for ss, I'm still running a fever. Please pray for mee."


Who's DY? I asked Yan Wei, then I saw the name when the whatsapp convo showed up. Oh it's Angel. I didn't pray for her, figured she will get better.


************


5:36am


I was watching Ong Bak 2 with my boyfriend, Wei. We were in a middle of a fighting scene where the main character is gonna kill off the man who nearly made his life miserable.


Then, my boyfriend exclaimed, "Eh! Angel passed away leh!"


I was shocked. "Eh... You sure or not? Don't joke leh!"


He called the best friend up. In a matter of minutes, the facts were laid bare to me. Angel fell off from her house's window on the 10th floor at 1plus pm. The thought of suicide did not even come into my mind. She, a sweet, innocent, blur girl, with a running fever probably toppled from the ledge due to giddiness. She would not have committed suicide. Why was I so certain? Because she is a bubbly girl whose close friend's can even vouch how strong she is in her faith and I can see it for myself. I found myself tearing as I packed my bag to meet the boys up for dinner, hoping to seek condolences from one another. After all, it is this BA family that made me understand what God's grace and mercy to sinners really mean. After all, it is this BA family that provided me shelter after I run away from my previous church, hurt, wounded, scarred and alone because I could not do what they could do. 


No wonder Auntie Dorothy, the Senior Pastor's wife was crying, and so was Cheryl, his daughter as she teared over the phone contacting her sister. 


************


10 something am, sometime after Lincoln's whacking sermon.


I was looking at the BAY internship allocation. Angel Tan, Constance Tan, Gaby Goh. Assigned to intern at the Pre-Nursery and Nursery level. I was laughing at Gaby because she does not really like kids, and thinking how much fun Angel and Constance will have especially Angel because she can get to play with Toby, the Youth Pastor Ivan's elder son. 


************


The following week when Angel is around, Gaby wouldn't need to do so much babysitting. Or so that was what Wei and I thought as we recounted the day's shocking event crashed upon our heads. Time didn't really seem to matter, I knew Death was always lurking around. Just a last week, my girl friend, Lizzie's grandaunt and grandpa just passed away. Before that, a church auntie whom I work closely in church with, Auntie Cindi's sister passed away. Left right centre. My mind is in a whirl. I just did not want to go home because I know I will cry if left alone.


I always knew that God is in control and no matter how weird things may be, we just got to believe that he is in control. But easier said then done when you hear a 17 year-old bubbly innocent girl die reported died. I will not claim to be very close to her, but close enough to feel the black hole of despair. It's just sad to know that someone whom you can clique with in church is no longer physically around. The idea that I will never see her again is still surreal. But wait, hold that thought there, I told myself. I will see her in heaven right? That is if she truly fell off the ledge giddy with no intention. & who told me she committed suicide? My mom said she might have committed suicide after I told her she fell off from the 10th floor of her house. I refuse to believe her. I choose to say that she truly fell off the ledge giddy with no intention of suicide and God wants her home now, because this girl is so innocent and blur, she might not be able to survive in this cruel world that is ripping my mind apart from a re-practicum and constant battle of the pride and self-pity demons. I choose to believe that God wants this faithful girl to go back home to him now. 


& the reason why I am still surviving in this cruel world? So that I can type this out and preach to the world that "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."  (Hebrews 11:1)




I now scour every single memory I have of her, photographic, audio, or just the name and mentions. Whilst at that, walking back home, Wei and I recalled how preachers like Marc, my bible study leader, and Ivan would tell us that we could be having lunch with someone and the next few minutes after a goodbye, they would no longer be around. Except that we didn't get to see Angel, she had to stay at home to recuperate. Her death, a timely reminder of how we have to be serious in our roles are disciples of Christ, that our friends, whom we love may no longer be around the next moment we turn our heads. We will truly not be able to see them ever if we do not tell them about the Good News. I slackened after my granny's death, because her death made me disillusioned and I lost my courage to. If such is the reminder God give us to jerk us out of our comfort zone to warn us that the end is near, then it's about time we got off our procrastinating coward ass and start executing our duties to preach and to evangelise. Or else, Angel would have died for nothing. & Christ would have even more so died for nothing if I did not live the way I should as his disciple and a Child of God.


The first time I heard of Angel would have been from Wei during our first V-day together as he shared with me how he made a joke about birthdays on Christmas using Angel's Birthday. "You know whose birthday is it today?" "WHO? ANGEL?" *Facepalm* 


The last time I remembered seeing her around was at church camp sitting at the sofa of my villa with Constance. Watching Ironman. But, she did come last week, and I have a vague memory of her around with Constance and Charlene joking around. Everything is slowly becoming fuzzy, and I want to take the memory down before I completely forget about it. After all, the best way to keep a died person alive is through our memories.


During dinner, we exchanged memories of how blur this Angel was. The Mushroom Cream Pasta from Ottimo that I normally would gobble down now seemed hard to swallow. Tried to lighten up the mood by starting the first "Think of the bright side". She is now with God. Everyone agreed autonomously. Then I heard from one of the boys that a running gag was that people would tell her that God must be looking for his missing angel in heaven, because she is on earth. Sounds like a bad pick up line. But how fitting, the joke was for such an occasion. An Angel has returned to heaven. 


A catharsis of words. But still not thorough. I still feel grieve. I still tear as I type this blog post. You made me break my silence on my blog just to type about you Angel. The girl born on December 25. Always smiling and forever remain innocent in my mind. There is still so much to be said but I know not how to express it beyond this. I do not know any other way to end this blog post off. Maybe except for R.I.P Angel, the girl with such an apt name. See you in a few years time.

How can anyone deny the Holocaust?

After watching a video about the Holocaust to see if there was a video I could use to let my student's view before discussing about Anne Frank, I discovered a few Holocaust deniers calling Jews "liars". I have always heard about it and even did a paper on neo-Nazism in Australia and how many of them are holocaust deniers and assert some form of superiority over others. I remember I cried while doing research for the Ravensbrück concentration camp in Secondary 4 and felt particularly affected after the presentation. Even now when I have to research about the Holocaust and Anne Frank  When I saw a particular YouTuber calling them liars despite watching this video in the link here I was in totally outraged.


How can anyone possibly call this a lie? Nearly 1/10 of Europe's Population when through this. How can 6 million over dead bodies lie? How 4 million over people lie? Can anyone deny another a right to even express their suffering posthumously? Bear in mind that some of these people who suffered were also non-Jewish. Some were even pure-White blooded Europeans who defied Hilter courageously to house their Jewish neighbours or even refusal to support these atrocious acts!


I feel so affected that i just have to talk about it... ... I want to make a stand against Holocaust denials!


By the way, anyone who says that it is impossible for a teenager to express herself in such a eloquent matter to deny that Anne Frank's diary is not real are seriously looking down on any other teenager and child. 






 "Those who deny Auschwitz would be ready to remake it." ~ Primo Levi

An Interview with an Undertaker: Distortion of Life from Death

Before I go on, I would like to thank the people who have been reading this post and asking me questions. I really appreciate the feedback and discussion. I look forward to seeing you on my blog more often and discuss issues with me as I continue to post. I would also like to thank the undertaker for allowing me this interview and lastly, thank God for this to even happen. :)

From previous interviews, it is shared that we can find out from the Bible that death is certainly not a desirable outcome. It is a punishment from God due to man's evil doing. Having said that, the idea of heaven and hell is real and there is an afterlife whether we like it or not. In this final installment of the 4 part mini-series, it is explained that Death is certainly not supposed to be a natural process, contrary to what most people believe. In the end, we are presented with 2 choices through the interview of the undertaker at the end: To live or not to live. Everything I say from here on will be superfluous, so I will just leave it to the undertaker to do the talking. 

Distortion of Life from Death

Do you think Death is a natural process? Why?

Death is not a natural process but a consequence of an ungodly choice by man. God has given a stern warning, “But of the tree of of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die”. Genesis 2:17. Sin is disobedience to Him. When Adam disobeyed God and took the fruit of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, which God commanded not to, he sinned against God and as a consequence death resulted. The wages of sin is death. Rpmans 6:23.     

I can immediately see 3 things that Sin makes us do.

1.      Sin will cost us more than we want to pay. Taking the example of the Israelites after the Battle of Jericho. One amongst them named Achan, in disobedience took and hid some silver and gold under his tent. The silver and gold was supposed to have gone to God’s treasury and the rest of the spoils in Jericho was to be destroyed.  But Achan took  and kept for himself. The consequence of his sin was that his sons and daughters, his belongings including his animals were stoned and burnt. It was certainly more than he wanted to pay for his sins. A criminal may be sentenced to a long imprisonment or even be put to death for his sins. When he committed the crime surely he did not expect to be caught and be made to pay for his crime, a price that he would not be willing to pay.

2.      Sin will make you stay longer than you want to stay. The Israelites stayed forty more years going around in the wilderness because of their sins of not trusting God to lead them into the Promised Land. A drug addict gets stuck on his habit that he becomes enslaved to for many years and for many their lifetime; or an adulterer who thought that it was just going to be a one night stand developed a long term affair that destroys his entire family and trust of his loved ones. I have a friend who started flirting with a woman and then they started to have an affair and he lived more than twenty years in this sinful relationship and all these years of lying to his wife and family.

3.      Sin makes you go further than you want to go. For example, in the Bible we read that King David saw Bathsheba bathing and he lusted over her and took her to bed. Then when she became pregnant, he started to devise her husband’s death. Sex leads to murder and later we also read that there was chaos in his palace and household. I think we will be familiar with telling a lie, then cover it with more and more lies. This is what it means when I say sin makes us go further than we want to go.

And sin leads to death. So death is a fruit of our sins and was never intended to be natural. It only came upon mankind when sin came into the picture. But if we view death from the already fallen nature of man, then death does seem to be a natural conclusion to life.    

If you permit me, I would like to share some thoughts about how to avoid situations that might make us fall into sin. Let us visit the Garden of Eden.

In the Garden of Eden, God permits man to eat of any fruit except the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. His warning was that the day he eats of that forbidden fruit he shall surely die. But we noted that Adam and Eve were in the vicinity of that forbidden tree. In other words they were where they should not have been. Then we also noticed that there was Satan in the form of the serpent with them. They were in the wrong company. Then Satan started to talk with them. They were engaged in wrong talks with the wrong company. What happened?

Satan started to get their attention away from the great liberty and free life that God had lavished on them. He then focused on the one and only restriction and started to make them feel that God has shortchanged them. Satan lied to make them blind to God’s goodness and made them feel that God’s intentions for them were not good, that He did not want them to be like Him. To summarise, Satan blinded Man to God’s good will, then he planted the seeds of doubt that made them challenge God’s authority, and he robbed Man of life because he knew the penalty of breaking God’s law is Death.

No, Death was never meant to be a natural event in life. Unfortunately, Man chose death when he chose not to believe God. But we thank God that He did not just leave Man to die and be separated from Him forever. God sent His son Jesus to bear the death penalty on our behalf. As we have it now, our physical body will die, but we have eternal spiritual life with God when we believe and receive Jesus in our hearts.

“For God so loved the World that He gave His only Son that whosoever (you and me) believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life” John 3:16

Choose Life.

An Interview with an Undertaker: Destination after Death

Last week, I shared about life and death, and whether it is a tabooed topic too unsavory for the dinner table. After much thought, I realised that not many people talk the idea of Death to begin with and so explains the popularity of these articles as I post them up on fb. Besides, it is about Christianity.

I will make no apologies to explicitly include my religion, because afterall, I'm not here to gloss over things and make the topic look pretty. While other preachers choose to tell believers that when they believe in Jesus they go to Heaven(and most of the time people take Jesus for a mere pass to Heaven and the Spirit an emotional high); I choose to tell them about death and it being a consequence of man's rebellion against the Lord and precisely why they should not consider between heaven or hell in the first place, but rather God or self/death. For I need no eloquent wisdom nor the wisdom of the world to spread the Word of God. It's believe in the death of Jesus as your way to salvation or Death. As simple as that.

Without further ado, let me share what the undertaker has to say about what the afterlife really holds for us according to the Bible.

Destination after Death?

Is Death the end of all things? Is there an afterlife?

I guess to most people Death would be the end of all things, although I should say that all things don’t end except the one who dies. So maybe the spirit of the question is “does he die to all things?” In the physical aspect, I would believe so. But in the spiritual aspect, I personally do not know except what I am told in the Bible. And that physical death closes a chapter in this physical world while it opens a new one in the spiritual world. What might this spiritual realm be? The Bible tells us there is Heaven and Hell. So who goes where? The Bible again tells us that in God’s hands there is a Book of Life. Anyone whose name is not registered there will be sent to Hell and those whose names are written in it will go to Heaven. Does this sound cruel what God is doing? Actually not, man is given a free will to choose. By not choosing life he has chosen to remain in death. John 3: 18 and 19 tells us that those who believe Jesus is not condemned but those who do not believe are condemned already. The condemnation is that we reject the Light and choose to remain in darkness (sin). How do we choose life so that our names will be written in the Book of Life? John 3: 16 of the Bible tells us, “For God so loved the world He gave His only Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life” and in John 14:6 Jesus says,” I am the Way, the Truth and the Life; No man goes to the Father (God) but by me”. Is there an afterlife? Very much so, except that this afterlife can be an eternity of peace and joy in God’s presence or an eternity in Hell’s fire and suffering without God’s presence and in eternal separation from God.

During this very short lifespan on Earth, we have to make that important decision that will have an eternal consequence. I seriously urge everyone to seriously consider this carefully. Choose the only Way, the Truth and the Life, whom Jesus said He is.



Should Death be a mourning or celebration?

As I mentioned earlier, I believe all Death bring about a separation except the one death, that of Jesus that brings reconciliation. Death takes us away from our loved ones, or our loved ones from us and that makes us sad and gives us reason to grieve and mourn over our loss. It is very human to grieve and mourn over our loss of a loved one. I have seen some who actually throw such a huge celebration when their relative died because they inherit a huge estate and wealth. On the other hand I have also heard curses being hurled at the deceased because the only inheritance left to them is a huge debt. Whether to mourn or celebrate depends very much on several factors, like the ones just mentioned with regards to inheritance; or with regards to how close the deceased was with the surviving relatives. If their relationship had been good, they grieved the more and if not, lesser.


However, for those who have some religious bias or beliefs their reactions to death may differ. If they believe that their loved one who departed has gone to Heaven, there is much rejoicing and if not then there is apprehension, guilt and doubt.


I personally have grieved over the loss of my parents who were very dear to me, but I did not grieve hopelessly. I believe as Christians they have gone to be with a loving God. So while I was sad to have lost them I was actually glad they are now in a better place with Christ. To that, I celebrate.



Join me next week as I talk about the Distortion of Life from Death  and the Death that our sins have created.

An Interview with an Undertaker: Definition of Death

Last week, I introduced the background for my personal quest in this mini-series and introduced a christian undertaker and his Dealings with Death. Tonight I will be sharing about life and death, and whether it is a tabooed topic too unsavory for the dinner table.

Without further ado, here are the answers

Definition of Death

What are your personal views on life and death and its meaning?

There are 3 aspects of life that I would like to share about.

1)      Life is a trust. I believe that the life we have and all the things we have are entrusted to us by God. Our life is God’s gift to us. God trusts us with this life. What we do and how we live this life is our gift back to God. The question I ask myself often is will God be satisfied with His investment in me.

2)      Life is full of trials. I believe that God allow trials in our life to build our character and to refine us. An apt illustration will be that of the Silversmith. How does the silversmith know if the silver has been refined and pure? When he puts the ore to the fire, the dross and the impurities are burnt out and the silver will melt into a very shiny mass. When the silversmith looks at the silver, he can see his own image in it. Then he knows the silver is ready. When God is through with us by the trials He presents us, He will see His own image in us. That’s what it means when the Bible says we shall be like Him.

3)      Life is temporary. As you know I am in the funeral service. You often see tombstones with markings like “Freddie Choo, Born 1954-Died 2012”. Here, life is marked as “-“between the dates for birth and death. It’s just a short dash, and that’s how temporary life is here on Earth. We were born without anything and we will die without anything. It is so sad to see people amassing great wealth and trying to build great empires as if they are going to be here forever. Then when they are about 70 years or maybe 80 years old, they die, bringing with them nothing. All their labor has come to nothing, a striving for the wind. The terrifying thing that comes next is that he will have to face God to be judged. This brings me to the next part of the question, what my personal views of death and its meaning are.

To me Death is a separation. I feel that to better illustrate what I mean, I should try to explain of my belief what being human is.

What is Man? The common answer we often hear is that Man is made up of Body, Soul and Spirit. What really does this mean?

1)      Body – The human body has senses like sense of smell, taste, touch, hearing and sight. By these senses we get to know the world we are in.

2)      The Soul- The soul has faculties like emotions and the soul allow us to know who we are.

3)      The spirit- The spirit has a conscience that allows us to know who God is. In a certain sense, the spirit is like the heart of the soul, the part that connects us to God. Without the spirit we cannot connect with Him. It is this spirit that makes man searching for God, but unfortunately many went a looking at wrong places and turning to idols.

When physical death occurs, the soul (who we are) gets separated from the body. When spiritual death occurs the soul gets separated from God. That sounds so fatal does it not? Fortunately, there is such a thing as spiritual life, an eternal life. Scripture tells us that God who loved us so much gave His only Son, Jesus, who died for our sins and those who believe in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life. Wow! While all of us know death to separate people from their loved ones and their God, there is one death that actually reconciles us to our God and our loved ones. And that was the death of Jesus on the cross. He rose again to conquer death and to break the power of sin.  Therefore, for those who trust God and accept His Son, when physical death occurs, their souls return to God to live this new spiritual triumphant eternal life.

Should Death be avoided and the topic of death be treated as a taboo?

No one can avoid death. Most, if not all people fear death but none can avoid it. There was a famous Hollywood actor and movie director who said, “I don’t fear death, I just don’t want to be there when it happens”. Death is not a probability but a certainty. “It is appointed unto Man once to die and then the judgment” Hebrews 9:27.  Because of our fear Death becomes a taboo, and so we do not want to talk about it. Not talking about it does not mean it will not come. It will come for sure. When? We do not know but we know it will indeed come knocking at the door; earlier for some and for others later. 

The sooner we acknowledge that death is real and death is certain, then we will learn to live our lives more meaningfully. I have heard it being suggested and I believe in it, that we should live our life as if this is our last day. Then we will truly want to do things that count, things that are meaningful. We would want to mend broken relationships and make things right. We want to smell the roses while they still bloom and say lovely words to our loved ones while we still may do so and while they may still hear us.

To live as if death will not come to us is to live in denial of the truth. When it does come, it will be such a shocking awakening.


Join me next week as I talk about the Destination of Death and what the afterlife really holds for us according to the Bible.

An Interview with an Undertaker: Dealing with Death

Hungry Ghost Festival just ended, and all the talk of Death and afterlife is somewhat still in the air. What more a time such as this to talk about death and the afterlife?

Death is something that people fear because they do not know what happens after a person dies. Is it the end all of life? People around me would know that not too long ago, my grandma passed away. The idea of death is still fresh in my memory. Then just a months, my archery teammate's grandma passed away too. Both are not saved. Neither is my friend himself. Uncannily, recently someone newly close to my heart has to do a project on the topic of unsung heros of this funeral trade and I decided to tag along to find out more behind the scenes and how these people view death and mourning.

Many things happened before she passed away that made family ties estranged, so when she passed away, I was left hanging with a lot of personal issues. Furthermore, my grandma is not saved, which makes things more heartbreaking for me, as I have the hope of heaven that she did not have, and I will never see her again. Hence, I found that though I'm more or less moving on in life and happily serving the Lord, my heart still wants to reconcile certain things, and I realised that I may not be the only one facing such an issue within my circle of friends. I have a lot of ambivalent feelings in my heart and I know that I am and will not be in the only one. So I hope this in the process of interviewing, collecting information and writing the article, I can find some solace and answers that I can share with everyone in the same plight.

Background of the undertaker:
The undertaker is a strong Christian whose family members are also Christians. He and his family often helps out in the church as much as he can. Being in this line for so long, even as much as to be a big boss, he certainly has contemplated on life and death, and has placed his faith and trust in God for the salvation of his family and himself. In my face to face chat with him to request for an email interview, the strong idea that I got was that death is a natural process and it is by no means a glorious thing to be profiting from the deaths of others, but he certainly does this as a personal mission to do what others dare not do and providing funeral services so that the families of the deceased can mourn properly.


I realised that because of the fact that he enthusiastically replied my questions seriously, his answers were  in no way deficient of content nor depth. Cutting out and editing on any words were difficult as it will not do him justice, so I will split up the interview into segments and do this posts in a 4 part series as follows:
1. Dealing with Death (This post)
2. Definition of Death
3. Destination after Death
4. Distortion of Life from Death

Without further ado, I bring you the first of the 4 part series of An Interview with an Undertaker.

Dealing with Death

Question: How have your religion and job influenced the way you view death?

I am a Christian. I believe what the Bible tells me. It says that when I believe in Jesus and accept Him as my Lord and Saviour, I will have eternal life when I die. As such, I do not fear death because when I die I go to Heaven. Why would I be fearful to go to Heaven? My job as a funeral director keeps me constantly reminded that death is so real. Everyday people die, people cry over them, and I hear stories of many things that were planned but not done because death cuts short his time to do so. This reality makes me sensitive to others, to treat them with love. To tell my family I love them and to do things that make people happy, things that count. Because I see death every day, it makes me treasure life the more, life of others and my own. I think it might be more appropriate if you asked me how I view life because of death. Yes, my life, how I live it and what I make it to be is my gift back to God and I hope He will not be disappointed investing in me. 

Join me next week as I talk about the Definition of Death and what it means to him and most probably to me too.

Self Versus God: Are our hearts really on God?

I just had a revelation, if not, reminder in a form of a big sized reasoning that I cannot ignore.

A commonly asked question is "Prove to me that God exist". My question to them is "You sure u wanna listen to my explanation? It's not going to be short like a snap nor is it going to be pleasing to ur ears." Humans have a finite form and therefore have finite mind and heart. How can we squeeze a infinite God that lived before time, and created time within time and our finite minds that is smaller than time? God does not need to prove his existence to us if we refuse to accept that he is bigger than us.

And to ask God to show his miracles like healing and uncommon signs to prove his glory and power or even satisfy our desire to be reaffirmed that he is real or just for the feel high is like asking a trained poodle to do stunts. God is no trained poodle, he will do miracles and heal as he pleases to and he will show his glory and power in his way and we must acknowledge it. In fact he has already shown his glory and power to us, in our being itself and in his son Jesus, the most innocent man who died the most horrifically humiliating and painful death for the sake of God's will which is to provide a way for our salvation through Jesus' death and resurrection.

This will indeed be mind boogling to people who have choosen from the start to ask for prove just for the sake of an intellectual debate and self-gratification that God doesn't exist. If we have our hearts full of ourselves, how can we have the space to let God in, let alone the people around us?

When we ask for his glory to be shown on earth? Is it for prove to the world that God is almighty or is it to prove to people that we are believing in the right thing and be proud(or even boostful about it)? When we ask for healing of people in general, is it for ourselves to get better or is it a cheap way to show people what God can do so that they can choose God?

Are our hearts really on God?